Find Your Way Back
by WickedSong
Summary: When something goes wrong in the past, Joe Evans is forced to do some time travelling of his own and join his friends Rory Hummel-Anderson and Sugar Pierce-Lopez before the time runs out. Samcedes with some Klaine, Brittana and Flanamotta. AU crack!fic.


**Find Your Way Back,**

**Written by WickedSong.**

**Disclaimer/Note : I do not own Glee, FOX do. This is based off of the tumblr theory that Sugar and Rory are the Brittana/Klaine kids and then us Samcedians took it one step further and made Matt and Joe the Samcedes children so here's my take on that. It's my second attempt at a crack!fic, my first being 'In Front of His Eyes', which is a prequel of sorts to this but no prior reading is necessary. Enjoy! It's probably the craziest thing I've written. Some elements of canon are here but it is AU.**

* * *

><p>The first person he ran into was his mom. He had been one of the first out of his English class just before lunch and had been determined to use the breaktime to find his friends and ask them what had gone wrong. Of course this had distracted him momentarily and he had quickly bumped into his mother, walking hand in hand down the hallway with her boyfriend, Shane.<p>

Joe only winced as he thought of this. She wasn't meant to be with Shane right now, she wasn't meant to be with anyone but the one thing that was supposed to have happened to cause that hadn't shown up, despite the fact that he should have in early December.

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned. "You looked a little preoccupied."

He nodded his head. "Yeah, I'm fine mo-" He quickly stopped himself. It would not do to give his identity away on his first day in this time, especially when Sugar and Rory had been doing such a good job themselves.

She held out her hand to him. "Well, I'm Mercedes Jones, this is Shane Tinsley."

Shane gave a wave and a smile and Joe attempted to return the favour. He didn't hate Shane, in fact he held no feelings towards him. The man had just never really been an issue and all he actually did know about him was that he was his mother's ex-boyfriend whose name had come up once or twice when his father told the story of how they fell in love, a story which not only he and his brother enjoyed but the other kids of the former New Directions did too.

"Joe Ev-Hart. Joe Hart." He clarified this quickly and realised that keeping himself under wraps was going to be harder than he had thought. "I used to be home schooled. Just transferred."

Mercedes smiled and nodded at this. "I thought you were new. But I swear I've seen you before."

"Come on baby, we should really get to lunch," Shane interrupted, taking Mercedes' hand as she inadvertantly scrutinised Joe.

"Must just be you look like someone," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "See you around, Joe."

"See you around, mo-Mercedes."

_You stupid idiot_, he scolded, _get a hold of yourself or you'll be exposed by the end of the day._

Mercedes left, hand in hand with Shane and Joe sighed as he watched his mom walk down the hallway. She may be a teenager right now, his age, just a little bit older, but she was still the woman who raised him, in some way, and this was evident by how she had looked at him as if she knew who he was, even though that was impossible.

Walking in the opposite direction his first step was to gather intel on where Rory and Sugar could be. The pair had travelled back at the beginning of the year, under the noses of their parents, after hearing the stories of Matt's travel and what he had saw. Joe had to admit he felt jealousy when he thought of his older brother and the fact that he had been able to witness the beginning of their parents' relationship but if it wasn't for him it wouldn't have happened at all.

Being lost in his thoughts, Joe yet again bumped into another person.

"Watch it, loser!" shouted one of the football players as he felt himself being shoved into a locker.

He looked down and saw it was one of the guys who now worked as a busboy in a local Lima cafe from his time.

_We'll see who the loser is in twenty years, won't we, _was his scathing response in his head, not brave enough to shut down the hall and attract attention to himself.

Standing up, Joe brushed himself off and continued walking, until he finally saw them, holding hands at Rory's locker. Sugar stood on tiptoes for a kiss while Rory only smiled at this. Joe leaned on one of the nearby lockers and shook his head. For two people who had always insisted they would never be a item, they looked pretty cosy right now. Under normal circumstances he would walk up and tease his friends about it but right now he was furious and no amount of happiness for them could blanket that.

"Well, I'm glad to see that you two are having such fun!"

Rory and Sugar jumped apart at the hiss as Joe came to stand at the locker next to Rory's. The Hummel-Anderson son wore a shocked look as the Pierce-Lopez daughter looked equally as surprised by Joe's sudden appearance.

Sugar quickly got over this and attempted to hug him but he stepped back and when Rory offered his hand he refused to shake it.

"Whoa, what's with the attitude?" asked Sugar, acting more and more like Santana as she folded her arms and shook her head at him. "Someone's pissy."

"Well, travelling back in the past to make sure my parents get together doesn't exactly fill me with as much joy as you'd think." At the mention of this, Rory's jaw fell open and Sugar dropped the tough girl look.

The pair looked at the other, as if trying to find some way to accuse the other but in reality it was both their faults and his. Why did he really have the smart idea to let them go by themselves. He should have went too but Matt had warned him against it and he had promised he wouldn't - until he knew that it was something that left their exsistence hanging in the balance.

Matt couldn't go back and risk exposing himself since he had 'transferred' without a word at the end of the year he had went back to in order to secure the glee club's existence. He hated time travel anyway, due to his mistake in not charging the machine and being stuck in the past a year extra, a year he got back when he finally travelled back to the future. For how confusing it was, Joe hated the concept of travelling in time as well.

"Joe, we're so-"

"Save it. Can we go talk somewhere else?" he asked, folding his arms, and tucking his dreads behind his ear. His father teased him constantly about the hairstyle, remarking it looked somewhat like a tarantula had grown on his head. Joe could always combat this however, commenting on the period of time when his father had Justin Bieber hair, as he had witnessed from pictures that his parent's friends had shown him.

Rory nodded to Sugar. "Sure, come on, we can find an empty class."

Joe only nodded. He wouldn't - and couldn't - hate them forever but his anger was nowhere near disappating. He followed the couple down the hall until they walked into an empty Math classroom.

"Right, tell me, how could getting my dad back here thus securing my life, as well as Matt's, slip your mind?"

"We're so sorry. It's just, there was all this drama surrounding Sectionals, you know, with the Troubletones vs. New Directions, and Mama's outing and Sebastian and-" Sugar trailed off as she looked down.

"I can understand all that other stuff," Joe admitted, his tone softer but he quickly became more assertive and angry with his next words," but the Troubletones was the opportunity. My dad came back because you brought him up as someone who could join the group to help win." He looked at Rory accusingly. "And Sugar, if that failed you were meant to tell someone somehow."

"Look, Joe, we had our own problems-"

"Stop being so selfish!" Joe exclaimed. "For the past two weeks do you know what's been happening? Matt and I have been going missing."

"Missing?"

"Disappearing for periods of time. Invisible. Gone."

"What?"

"It means that gradually the universe is cancelling us out, at least that's what Aunt Britt said when I asked her. She built a makeshift time machine for me when she figured it out."

Rory and Sugar were only silent as they looked at him. He couldn't stand it.

"Do you have any idea how serious this is? My parents were meant to get back together in high school, a few weeks after Regionals and Aunt Quinn's accident. Now, we only have a month to make that happen and my dad is nowhere in sight."

"Why a month?"

"You know I don't get this timey-wimey stuff, Rory," Joe dismissed. "All I know is if that doesn't happen soon, my mom will be content to become Mrs. Tinsley," he could hardly bring himself to say it, "my dad will marry some girl from Kentucky and Matt and I will cease to exist."

"Now you're being dramatic, Joe," Sugar commented dryly.

"Easy to say when your parents got together at the right moment, isn't it, Sugar? And when your not disappearing from time and space at irregular intervals."

Sugar gave him a glare but her expression quickly softened. "OK, well, this isn't over yet. Regionals are coming up. The Troubletones and New Directions tied and the New Directions still need some members. Why don't we plant the idea in Uncle Finn's head now?"

"Still doesn't help the fact that it took months after my dad came back for my parents to get back together and that Shane is still in the picture, more prominently now than before."

Rory sighed, shaking his head. "We're so sorry, Joe. If we had realised-"

"None of us should have came back. This was a stupid mistake. You two risked everything."

"Like your brother did," countered Sugar.

"Without Matt, we might have not been alive, so I'd be owing him everything right now," retorted Joe. "You know he had to come back for the sake of getting glee together. Your mama would still be in the closet, your dads may have never met, everyone would be so far away from each other if glee disbanded that first year."

Sugar didn't say anything more. "Leave it with us Joe. We'll sort this out. I guess we owe you guys now."

"I can figure it out on my own. Just try not to forget about the Evans' clan when you go back to your lives at the end of the year, huh?"

Joe left the classroom to the shocked silence of Rory and Sugar.

* * *

><p>"Mr. Schue, I'd like to audition for glee," Joe said at the end of the last period of the day, History. "I can play guitar, I can sing and my parents are both very musically inclined."<p>

"Oh really?" Mr. Schue asked, smiling gratefully at the boy in front of him. "Well, if I'm being honest, glee does need more performers. We have the band filling in right now but if we want to take Regionals then-"

"Does that mean I'm in?"

"Friday, four o'clock, the choir room, if your audition is good, you're in." Mr. Schue left the class and Joe smiled to himself.

The next step was finding the Thunderclap from the year before. While the glee club were still the bottom of the school's food chain, they had been awarded a few more pages in the yearbook for their achievements and this was reflected in the page which held all the competition photographs, as well as the one with the glee photo.

On the competition page he saw his father and Quinn performing their duet at the 2010 Sectionals competition, then a picture from the end of their Regional performance, which Matt had been lucky enough to be in the audience for, and finally a picture of the team celebrating after their Nationals performance. What struck him the most in this picture wasn't his Aunt Santana and Uncle Mike looking as if they were screaming at the side or his Uncle Finn's flailing arms all over the place but the hug that his mom and dad were in, as if they didn't care what was going on around them, as if they had found a home in each other. It wasn't a particularly clear picture but he could see that much.

He sighed happily as he looked at the picture on the page beside it, from the glee club's last meeting of the previous year. His parents had been keeping themselves a secret at this time but it didn't stop the small smile they shared from across their row, to the unknowing eyes of Puck, Lauren and Quinn who sat in between them.

How no one had picked up on this relationship before they had revealed it just before his dad left he had no idea.

He put the Thunderclap back. Now he just had to get into glee club and then plant the idea of bringing back Sam Evans.

Returning to his table to pick up his bag and jacket he found his mom beginning to sit down. "Oh, were you sitting here?" she asked.

He sat down across from her. "I was just leaving."

She nodded. "It's Joe, right?" she asked and while she did sound bright and cheerful it sounded forced.

Nodding back to her he asked, "Are you alright?"

Was it overstepping his boundaries to ask? Probably. But it was hard to ignore one of the people who had raised him even if to her he was nothing more than a very inquisitive stranger.

She gave a wry smile and shook her head. "Trust me, you don't want to hear about my problems."

"Come on, mo-Mercedes." That was a close one but it was hard to call her by her name when he had called her mom for his entire life.

She gave him a strange look. "I don't feel very comfortable talking about it." Joe scrutinised her and she sighed. "It's just-I broke up with my boyfriend."

On the outside he maintained a poker face, completely devoid of any emotion as he guaged hers but on the inside he was having somewhat of a celebration, mixed with some sadness because he couldn't bear to see his mom without that light in her eyes.

"You two looked happy."

"Yeah, well appearances can be deceiving," she pointed out. "That's a good lesson to learn."

"My mom says that too."

Mercedes shook her head. "Do I know you? It's just, there's something about you I can't put my finger on."

Joe shook his head back at her.

"Shane is a good guy, but just not the one for me, that's all."

Joe nodded in understanding while on in the inside he was already devising the next step of his plan beyond glee club and getting his dad back to the school.

The bell rang for Joe's next class and he figured his mom must've had a study period or something. He said goodbye and then left the library, his hope for his future renewed.

* * *

><p>"So part of your big plan is glee club?" Rory asked as Joe sat beside him in the choir room after he had joined the club. His audition had went smoothly and Mr. Schue and the team had welcomed him with open arms. "That is <em>so <em>inspired."

"Worked for you and Sugar, didn't it?" pointed out Joe as he handed Rory a copy of the Thunderclap he had looked over in the library the week before. "And you're part of my next plan, anyway. I can't bring up Sam, that's too suspicious but you-"

"It's still suspicious. I swear these guys have some sort of amnesia or something because they never talk about him. _Ever_."

Joe shrugged. "It's more suspicious for me to bring him up than you considering you've been here since the beginning of the year. Besides, I'm sure you being curious about a guy who you saw a picture of in the Thunderclap when you looked through it isn't going to warrant that much attention. But it needs to be Finn you ask."

Rory nodded and then stood up from his seat, book open at the page he needed. Of course it was at this point that Mr. Schue decided to start the lesson.

"Regionals are next week and-Rory do you have a question?" the teacher asked. He looked at the book in his hands. "Why do you have the Thunderclap."

Rory looked at Joe with a 'the things you make me do' expression but Joe only shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to look as intrigued as the rest of the class.

"I-um-erm-was doing some reading in the library and I-I-saw some of the pictures from last year," he began. "I thought they could maybe inspire song selection for this year," he ended weakly, causing Rachel to smile brightly.

"Wow, what an amazing idea, Rory, of course it should be another duet led by Finn and myself."

"Because that went _so _well at Regionals two years ago and Nationals last year," Quinn said sarcastically. "No wonder the girls didn't want to come back to the group after Sectionals."

"Well, there can be no tie at Regionals," Mr. Schue pointed out. "We need a secret weapon of some sort. The element of surprise."

"I was looking through this," Rory said quickly, and Joe gave an encouraging smile and nodded his head subtly to tell him to continue, "and I saw a picture of this blonde guy. Who is he? He won Sectionals with Quinn."

Quinn looked at the picture and smiled. "Sam Evans."

"They didn't win Sectionals," Rachel corrected. "We tied with the Warblers - and may I point out that both times I was not on lead-"

There was a collective groan throughout the room as Rachel spoke and as she rambled the conversation continued.

"So what about Sam?" Mr. Schue asked Rory. "He moved, do we even know where he is?"

"Kentucky," Joe said and he didn't realise he had until he covered his mouth quickly. In his mind he must've said _'oh shit,' 'oh shit, 'oh shit,' _about a hundred times over.

Everyone gave him a pointed look. "How the hell does new guy know where Sam is?" Puck asked. "Hardly any of us knew where Sam was until he made a Facebook."

"I-I-um-I-"

"We looked him up on Facebook," interjected Rory and while this itself brought a whole host of questions no one asked. No one seemed to remember that until a couple of moments ago Rory seemingly didn't know Sam's name.

Mr. Schue shook his head. "Whatever guys, Sam and his family had to move. There's not a whole lot we can do."

"We could try to get him back. He could stay with Kurt and me."

"Kurt and _I_, Finn," said his step-brother. "And I agree, we need him back. Our group is not the family it is without him."

Joe almost snorted at this and Kurt looked at him quizzically. He coughed to cover the almost-laugh. Some kind of family where they didn't even talk about him until he was brought up by the seemingly-clueless Irish exchange student and the new kid who somehow knew where he was.

But apparently this was how the glee club operated. Joe sat back as Finn revealed his plan to go and recruit Sam - or try to - the next day. To his surprise he asked Joe and Rory to come with him since they had been so interested in it. Unable to say no without risking some questioning Joe said yes, aware he would come face to face with his dad sooner rather than later.

* * *

><p>"We had another guy in our group when it first formed," Finn reminicsed as the guys and Rachel drove to Kentucky. Puck had also joined in on the road trip and nodded his head as well, at the wheel of the car.<p>

"He was in football as well. Matt something or other."

It made Joe's heart sink to see that they had already begun to forget about Matt but that was how the time travelling worked. Eventually himself, Rory and Sugar would all be the same. Completely forgotten. It was for the best however. Time travel hadn't been uncovered yet and the discovery of it in this time period could be catastrophic.

"Are we almost there?" he asked, looking out the window.

Finn pulled up. "Here we are. This looks like a strange place for Sam to be singing."

All boys looked at each other but Rachel just nodded her head brightly, full of her usual enthusiasm and got out of the car. The boys shrugged, following her and walking into the dimly lit bar.

"Dude, there are cougars everywhere!" exclaimed a highly excited Puck as he looked around the room, Rachel assuring them that dinner theatre was common for older ladies.

Joe only stood at the side, waiting for the penny to drop in all their minds about what exactly their friend was working as. He was sure Rachel had almost reached that conclusion. His dad had told him all about this particular profession and while it was one he wasn't proud of, he said he would do it again if it could keep his family with a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. That was all that mattered.

As the other men involved in the stripping walked onstage, Joe found himself looking away.

"And please welcome, White Chocolate."

"Oh God!"

"Oh no!"

"I will never be able to get that image out of my head!"

Rachel, Puck and Finn all voiced their thoughts about Sam's occupation while Joe kept his eyes averted, chuckling to himself at their reactions.

Rory walked up to Joe and hit him in the shoulder. "My eyes! My eyes! Why didn't you tell me your dad was a stripper!" He whispered this as quietly as he could, with the music in the background and the others beside them.

"When was that going to come up?" Joe asked, in a teasing tone. "Plus, it was funny seeing your facial expression. Not so innocent Uncle Sam anymore, huh?"

Rory shook his head. "I will never be able to look at your dad in the same way again, dude."

The guys watched as Rachel gave a dollar to a shocked and surprised Sam and they were all whisked away backstage to a grubby changing room. Finn brought in food and Sam sat down, Rachel sitting beside Finn across from him, Rory and Joe sitting on a table, with Rory trying desperately not to think of his Uncle Sam doing _that_ and Puck shaking his head.

"What are you doing working here?" asked Rachel.

"You have so much potential dude, and you're just throwing it all away in a place like this."

Sam shook his head irritated, and it made Joe uncomfortable, as it had when he had spoken to his mom, to know so much about the man before him and have him know nothing in return yet.

"Look, I did work at the DQ but the pay wasn't good. Then I got a job here. It helps when Stevie needs a new pair of shoes or we need to pay a stray bill or something."

"Come back to McKinley, help us win Regionals," Finn said suddenly and Sam sighed deeply and looked down. "Come on, tell us you don't want to."

Everyone looked to see what his response would be.

After a moment of silence he answered quite suddenly, "Of course I do," Sam replied and it looked like he wanted to add something else but didn't. "But my parents would never go for it."

"Only way you'll know is if you ask," Joe said encouragingly.

"Who's the guy with the taruntula head?"

Everyone else looked shocked at Sam's question but Joe laughed.

Yeah, that was definitely his dad.

* * *

><p>On the drive home, Sam didn't have many questions for his friends and they instead reminisced over the memories of the previous year. That was until Rachel decided to confront the elephant in the room.<p>

"Sam, there's something you should probably know."

"Mercedes has a new boyfriend? Or that I'm so June?"

The mood in the car declined after his statement.

"She broke up with her boyfriend," said Joe quietly.

"Seriously, new kid, how do you know all this stuff?" Puck asked with a confused expression. "First you knew _he_ was in Kentucky, now you know more about our friend than we do."

"We were talking in the library, on Wednesday," clarified Joe and Sam looked at him suspiciously.

Their introduction had been awkward to say the least with Joe almost saying, 'Hi, dad, I've come from the future because the existence of not only me but your other son hangs on you coming back to McKinley now and getting back together with mom, even though you and everyone else thinks she's moved on. I've had to come back because Rory and Sugar are also from the future and messed everything up,' before settling on a, 'Hi, my name is Joe Ev-Hart,' the same way in which he had introduced himself to his mother only a couple of days prior.

"Are you sure you're new?" asked Sam. "I'm positive I know you from _somewhere_. Even my _mom_ said you looked familiar."

Joe shook his head and had to stop the smile when he thought about meeting his grandparents. It was weird seeing his parents as teenagers but even weirder seeing his grandparents as not being grandparents and then there was also his Aunt Stacy and Uncle Stevie, who were still only children, a far cry from the adults he knew.

"Yeah, I know, that was weird," commented Puck. "Santana and Britt also said the same thing about that Sugar Motta and I swear sometimes Blaine has his theories about Rory."

Rory's head snapped up at that, laughing nervously. "That's weird, isn't it? That's really weird. Who has theories like that anyway?"

Puck nodded and Joe had to elbow Rory in the side to stop the nervous laughter.

* * *

><p>"And then this idiot almost gave us away."<p>

With the renewed hope about getting his parents together before he disappeared, Joe had decided he could forgive Sugar and Rory. Unless they screwed things up so badly that they couldn't get back to where they should be. In that case he knew who would be at the top of his list. But they did seem to be making an active effort in getting his parents back together, especially since theirs were blissfully happy in their relationships at this point.

Sugar elbowed Rory in the side, just as Joe had done in the car on the way back from Kentucky. "It's bad enough that I'm sure my mom knows something's up with us, now you're making everyone else suspect?"

"No one suspects anything and no one is going to believe your mom."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She thought I was a leprechaun, Sugar, a _leprechaun. _If she said that we're time travelling teenagers from the future I doubt it would make anyone want to investigate." Rory shrugged and continued to tuck into his PB&J sandwich.

"Still, we have to be more careful," Joe replied. "My mom and dad both think they know me from somewhere."

"Must be a parents' intuition or something," Sugar suggested. "Ahh, and there's Samcedes now."

"I can't believe you gave my parents a nickname," said Joe.

Sugar shrugged. "They're so cute and awkward."

Joe dared to turn around to see the two having a tentative conversation before walking away in different directions. He didn't miss the smile on either of their faces though. They were plain to see.

"He's coming our way," said Rory and when Sam sat down at their table, he greeted them all with a smile. Stopping at Sugar he held out his hand.

"I don't think we've been introduced. Sam Evans."

She took his hand. "Sugar Pi-Motta." Quickly covering her mistake, Joe face palmed while Rory gave a small chuckle beside her.

"Anyway, I need your help. Mercedes broke up with Shane, like you said but-"

"But she doesn't want to be with you?"

"Harsh, Sugar, just harsh."

Sugar gave a wry smile. "Sorry, was just stating facts." When Rory and Joe both gave her a look she shrugged. "Sorry, aspergers."

This only caused both Rory and Joe to shake their heads again.

"Look, dude, she still loves you, everyone can tell, you just have to fight for her," Joe said almost immediately.

Sam gave him a disbelieving look. "You got that from a two second conversation at lunch?"

Joe shrugged his shoulders. "Just call it intuition. Now here's what you could do. Join a sports team-"

"-Like synchronised swimming-"

"-Sing a flirty duet-"

"-How about Michael Jackson's Human Nature-"

"-Or a Spanish mash-up-"

"-I know two songs that will go great together-"

Sam looked at Rory who had been helping Joe with his points at every turn. "You seem to have given this a lot of thought."

Rory laughed, that nervous laugh again and Sugar gave him a warning look which caused him to calm down. "I just-I just-"

"How about her name in lights?" Joe asked, trying to change the conversation.

"Oh that story is _so_ romantic," said Sugar almost immediately and then she realised what she had said. Quickly stumbling over her words she clarified, "You know in that book, when that guy did that, and-and-and-Rory, we're going!"

"Where?"

"Away from here." She stood up quickly, taking her tray and Rory did the same nodding his head in acknowledgement to Sam and Joe before he did so. The two walked off holding hands leaving son and oblivious-father.

Sam stood up as well. "Well, thanks for the help, Joe. Tell Sugar and Rory thanks too." He smiled and walked away.

* * *

><p>Winning Regionals was an amazing feeling but what made it even more amazing was the hug that his parents shared straight after, even though they were on different teams, her congratulating her and him insisting that the Troubletones should have been the victors quietly as Rachel had also been within earshot. The hug was reminiscent of the one they had had after they had performed at Nationals. Joe may have been jealous that Matt had been able to see the beginning of their relationship but he felt truly blessed that he was able to see the growth of it.<p>

His dad had been trying non stop to win her back - singing songs, flirting and he had even joined the synchronised swimming team which had been Rory's suggestion. They weren't together yet but they were definitely getting there.

He _had_ heard the story about how they actually got together and he wondered if this meddling would change any of that. Would it change the realisation that his mother had come to while singing that song with the glee girls when she had saw his father's face instead of Shane's, would it change the kiss when they sang Human Nature and would it alleviate some of the heartbreak that resulted from his mother singing I Will Always Love You in glee club during Valentine's week?

Maybe, maybe not. Like he had told Sugar and Rory he didn't know a lot about time.

"They'll get back together, you know?" Sugar said to him one day after glee. The Troubletones had rejoined the New Directions in the run up to Nationals for the price of one song per competition. Sugar sat beside him. "When Mama got outed by Finn I thought that was it. And look at them now." Sugar smiled, as did Joe when he saw Brittany and Santana walk out of the choir room, arm in arm. "Things that are meant to be just have a way of working themselves out, even if they need a little push." She nudged his shoulder. "I am really sorry though."

A sight that did make him smile was the fact that his parents spoke while walking out the choir room. It was a far cry from the silence that had been present in their relationship following Regionals.

* * *

><p>The biggest shock to hit the group, an exact week following Regionals was the car crash that left Quinn fighting for her life. It had happened on the Saturday afternoon as she had been heading to Finn and Rachel's wedding. By the following day she was in a coma and all the light of the New Directions filtered away, as everyone worried about Quinn and hoped and prayed for her.<p>

Joe could see that the accident shook both his mother and father, both being very close to Quinn. His mom had been the one person Quinn had while pregnant while his dad had depended on her during the dark days of his family's financial problems. He wanted nothing more than to stand in front of the glee club and tell them that while Quinn was hurt and all seemed bleak now, she went to Yale, she graduated, she went on to marry a good man and have kids and do all that was now in the balance.

But it was also Quinn's accident that acted as the catalyst and he could tell that it almost around the time that his parents rekindled their relationship, his father always describing each other as being the other's saving grace during a time when nothing was certain.

He hadn't actually witnessed their reunion himself and so he didn't know if it had happened the same way in which he had often been told or if it had been slightly changed due to the changed nature of this time but that kind of stuff didn't matter. All that mattered was that sitting in that hospital waiting room, as they were all told Quinn had woken up from her coma, was seeing his father's arm around his mother's back as they sat close together for comfort. There was nothing but pure love and support there.

Sugar walked over with a coffee and sat beside him, Rory on his other side with a can of juice. "See, I told ya."

Rory handed him a can which he opened. "I know."

"We are sorry though." Rory looked down. "Our parents get their love stories pitch perfect. You're now stuck not knowing what future you're going back to."

"I think it'll be the same one, somehow."

"I thought you didn't understand time."

"I don't," he said to Sugar, but then he gestured to his parents. "I don't care how it happened because I know no matter what it will always be unconventional and not what the world expects - and that's them. All I care about is knowing that they're happy and together and that Matt and I are safe."

"So you gonna stick around?"

"I'll have to," Joe replied. "Aunt Britt's machine only brought me back, can't go forward."

Sugar looked confused. "Why would she do that?" she asked looking at the past version of her mom who gave the trio a small smile.

"She made it under a time constraint, Sugar," deadpanned Joe, "thanks to you two."

"How many times are we gonna have to apologise for that?"

Joe gave a small laugh. "Only a million. And then when Matt gets hold of you two." He laughed again, and the other New Directions looked at him, assuming it was because of Quinn's condition improving, and it was, but it was also because of the looks on Sugar and Rory's faces.

"It's Matt. He's a teddy bear," Sugar insisted, covering up her fear.

"Whatever you say."

"I could teach him a thing or two about Lima Heights."

"You try that after he's been going invisible on and off for the last two weeks," Joe told her. "You try it."

But the three smiled at each other, as they looked at their respective sets of parents. Kurt and Blaine sat holding hands talking quietly to one another and Brittany was explaining something to Santana which was making the Latina laugh.

Until finally Joe found his parents at the side of the room, not speaking but not needing words to communicate. They were saying everything to each other in the way they sat with one another, the way that they held hands and looked at such ease. The way that when he noticed her mood dropping, his dad would do one of his famous impressions and make her laugh, a laugh which wasn't forced, something she needed. Or when his dad also got that stormy look in his eyes, she would cheer him up by changing the topic of conversation to something completely off why they were there, knowing he needed the distraction.

Joe didn't know why he had been so worried.

They always found a way.

* * *

><p><strong>This is by far the longest piece of fanfiction I have ever written. It is also the most out of the box and the most AU that I have dared to write in this fandom so kudos to me (or maybe not, you're the judges after all). This came from my pondering, 'What if Sam hadn't came back for Sectionals? Why would this occur?' and also you know, I enjoyed writing In Front of His Eyes so much I wanted to spread my back to the future!Samcedes children wings a little more.<strong>

**This is under the Samcedes section because it is Joe's POV of his parents, as In Front of His Eyes was Matt's. I didn't know which section but just went for Samcedes because you know, what the hell could it hurt? I know the Samcedes reunion wasn't focused on that much but that's just purely because of the timing in which it occurred and what I think realistically (or as realisitcally as you can get when writing about people coming back from the future, you know?) Joe would be doing.**

**I haven't seen Heart yet, only gifs and gif sets and a few videos on tumblr and I couldn't remember the exact dialogue from HOTS so I basically paraphrased a lot and had to change a few things around because of the situation, of course.**

**So if you got this far without thinking, 'What the hell is this idiot doing with her time,' I thank you! :D**

**WickedSong.**


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